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LENORA LI
Sports, Culture and Civic Center
An Urban Platform for Public Life
Individual Work Spring 2025
Page Under Construction
Railway × Grid
As Barcelona expanded beyond its historic city center, the need for a new urban structure led to Cerdà’s plan for the city’s extension. The 1859 Cerdà plan introduced a new urban grid while retaining the existing railway routes. The railway therefore became a separate layer within the planned block structure, crossing the regular grid and creating different urban conditions along its edges.
Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer. Map of the outskirts of the city of Barcelona,1855
Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer. Project for the improvement and extension of Barcelona, 1859.
Vicenç Martorell Portas. Division of the map of the city of Barcelona. Municipal Service, 1930-1940
Barcelona Superblocks
Barcelona’s city blocks were originally designed around streets and car movement. The Superblock strategy groups several blocks together and limits car traffic on streets with lower traffic volumes. This creates more space for walking, cycling, trees, and public activities.
Research shows that different block combinations can be used to create Superblocks or smaller miniblocks. Larger Superblocks can transform more street space, but they may also affect a larger part of the street network and cause greater traffic disruption. Smaller miniblocks provide a more gradual way to introduce these changes.
(Eggimann, 2022)
Source: Eggimann, S. (2022). The potential of implementing superblocks for multifunctional street use in cities. Nature Sustainability, 5, 406–414.
Cultural Network
The site is situated within a strong cultural and urban network, surrounded by the Barcelona Museum of Music, National Theatre of Catalonia, Barcelona Design Museum, and Barcelona Encants Market. Together, these institutions and public spaces bring together music, theater, design, and commerce, creating an active and diverse urban context around the site.
This creates an opportunity for the site to connect its unique urban condition with the existing cultural and commercial network, becoming another point within the area’s broader cultural and urban life.
Building Plot and Urban Context
Concept Collage: Tower and Bridge
Site Plan with Proposed Buildings
Program, Circulation and Urban Connection
Organized around a central plaza, the project brings together three distinct architectural components: a subterranean sports center beneath the plaza, a civic center bridging over the train tracks, and a cultural tower rising above the site. These elements are connected through a system of stairs and elevators that create continuous movement between public programs and different levels of the project. By integrating transit infrastructure with active civic spaces, the design encourages accessibility, social interaction, and a dynamic urban atmosphere throughout the day.
Section A-A'
Section B-B '
Section C-C'
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